US warns Israel: Don’t be foolish

Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resist the temptation to make a foolish display of “strength,” as U.S. officials try to “prevent escalation” from Iran’s weekend strikes against Israel.

“In the 36 hours since, we have been coordinating a diplomatic response to seek to prevent escalation,” Blinken said Monday at the State Department. “Strength and wisdom need to be different sides of the same coin.”

Those remarks represented a public intervention into an unfolding debate in Jerusalem about whether and how Israeli officials should respond to a bombardment from Iran that was as unprecedented as it was unsuccessful. Israeli officials have signaled that they feel a need to punish Iran’s first-ever direct attack on Israel.

“When we look ahead, we consider our steps,” Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Herzi Halevi said Monday. “The launch of so many cruise missiles and drones into Israeli territory will be met with a response.”

That barrage was thwarted by a multinational defense array that included Israeli, U.S., European, and regional states with varying degrees of relations with Israel.

“Iran is a nation that endorses terrorism, and the world should have curtailed it much earlier,” an unnamed Saudi royal told an Israeli broadcaster, according to a translation published by the Saudi royal family and interpreted as an acknowledgment that Saudi Arabia provided support to Israel.

The Kingdom of Jordan, an Arab monarchy that shares a border with Israel and the West Bank, also authorized fighter jets to intercept incoming Iranian ordnance.

“Some objects that entered our airspace last night were intercepted because they posed a threat to our people and populated areas,” the Jordanian government said Sunday. 

Iran launched “more than 300 munitions” against Israel, according to Blinken, “including ballistic missiles as well as land attack cruise missiles and drones.”

“Ultimately, the defensive effort to intercept Iran’s drones and missiles was effective, successfully preventing what could have been a significant loss of life,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday. “This was a shared success and the United States is proud to have played a critical role in it.”

Iranian officials have declared nonetheless that the strike inaugurates a new phase in a long-running Iran-Israel shadow war, one in which Israel cannot bomb any Iranian assets anywhere without risking a direct war with Iran. The latest crisis arose after the bombing of an Iranian diplomatic facility in Damascus, a strike that killed a top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander who specialized in coordinating with Lebanese Hezbollah and other entities on Israel’s borders.

“If the Zionist regime takes action against Iran’s soil or in Iranian centers in Syria or elsewhere, our next operation will be even more significant,” Iranian Armed Forces chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri said Sunday, according to the Tehran Times. “We had the capability to conduct an operation ten times larger, but we aimed to deliver a proportional punishment.”

Israeli forces have targeted Iranian personnel and assets in multiple countries in recent years, including Syria, where Iranian forces have deployed to prop up Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and forge a land bridge between Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Lebanon. 

“Nobody wants an escalation. Everybody wants to contain the situation,” an unnamed Gulf source told the Times of Israel. “The pressure is not on Iran alone. The pressure is now on Israel not to retaliate.”

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Blinken invoked the multinational assistance to Israel in the course of amplifying international calls for Netanyahu to tread carefully.

“I think what this weekend demonstrated is that Israel did not have to and does not have to defend itself alone when it is the victim of an aggression, the victim of an attack,” Blinken said. “I’ve been in close communication with counterparts in the region, and we will continue to do so in the hours and days ahead. We don’t seek escalation, but we’ll continue to support the defense of Israel and to protect our personnel in the region.”